Sleep Over

So my son has his friend over to spend the night, and it was a lot of work to get the deal sealed.

A lot of negotiating back and forth which house they'd stay at. The friend says his mom is making him some cake and he wants to be able to eat that, so it should be his house.

My son says he wants sleep in his own bed, but his friend says he wants the cake.

My son says he can bring the cake with him, but his friend says he's afraid of the dark and can't bring the cake.

And that he never has anybody sleep at his house.

Eventually, they end up here.

It was a lot of work. Particularly after a long day of playing "Guitar Hero."

Anyway ... they're back there playing around, two elementary school kids trading football cards and generally exploring the evening, and I open the door and tell them, "There's only one rule: You can't play the Playstation."

The looks on their faces were priceless.

What a great sense of humor I have.

Wherever

It feels empowering to be in a town an hour-and-a-half away, arriving at close to 10 p.m., after working for most of the day, knowing you'll be there until after midnight, then back home and going back to work early the next morning.

Like you are somehow a master of more than one world, allowing to live in both.

Like you don't actually have to pay for it.

I got to see, listen and talk with Mason Jennings last night/this morning, but going to sleep at 4 a.m. and being up in time to sit in a courtroom over the course of nearly the entire day has been a painful experience.

The experience has been like living in a parallel universe, where your life is what it is ... but different.

So this morning I awoke to find my son's bicycle laying unceremoniously at the edge of the front yard, dripping with morning mist, the kickstand unused.

He ditched it there, when it came time to do the homework and take a shower and go to bed ... blah, blah, blah ... everything that sucks when you're a kid.

There it was, like a remnant of a state of mind under suspension.

I realized looking at it that I've always liked to see children's bicycles just ditched ... wherever. And even moreso watching them practically fall off their bikes to ditch them when they've gotten where they need to be.

Kickstands ignored. Twisted however it lands.

There's too little time to waste on formalities when it comes to consuming all life has to offer after you've gotten wherever it was you were headed to.

(It's probably, somehow, why I like long, winding gravel driveways with a pair of wheel-worn tracks split by undisturbed grass. Just however).

It makes me want to figure out if I can remove the kickstands from the devices in my life.







... and this is us with Mason Jennings.

The Old Truck

I enjoyed driving around in my father-in-law's little, beat-up pickup truck today as I waited for the brakes to be fixed on my newer, bigger, higher-rising, more-adorned Tacoma.

That little truck was my first vehicle out of college in 1997 and carried me to work at my first "real" job at a newspaper along the South Carolina coast.

It was an "old" 1993 Toyota pickup with a stick-shift and a cassette player.

I remember driving that truck that first day at work -- when I first realized that when I went home, I didn't then have to do any homework.

I remember being on the cusp of being married and being a renter and being excited about the place we could get with a joint income.

I carried a few drunk folks around in the back of it, and I managed to carry in my truck bed a bucket full of crabs from the marshes that somehow managed to stumble into being caught.

I drove it back in a haze to Columbia when I found out my uncle had died under a bridge. The seat didn't lean back. When my herniated disk flared up, it meant I couldn't turn to see the traffic when I changed lanes.

Four years went by, we moved to the Upstate, and along came my first son.

For the first year of his life, my wife drove the truck to work so that I could take the little baby in a car with a back seat.

As bad of a driver as she seems to (unsubstantially) think I am, she managed to dent the crap out of the rear side and all but crush the bumper. That warms my heart.

Then, we made the decision to take on some debt and buy a truck with some seats behind.

For the baby.

And for me. I always wanted a big truck. And with a CD player.

My father-in-law -- smart and successful and business savvy -- bought that thing off me and drives it regularly still. He managed to paint it himself, with a healthy dose of yoeman experimentation that adds to its charm.

I drove it around town today.

I could feel the gears moving in my hand. I had to make sure I didn't pop it into 1st when I meant for it to be in 3rd down a hill. I balanced downshifting with using the brakes in neutral -- (save brake pads or save gas?). I hated the guy who pulled so close behind me on a hill.

My back sat upright. It took me a while to realize that it wouldn't fall apart going 75 mph on the interstate.

No cassettes ... but no need ... because the radio doesn't work anymore.

As I approached a traffic light today, I thought,"This is cool. This was me when I was 23 -- simple, unencumbered, unassuming."

Driving the old truck was nice.

By the end of the day, I decided to take it to my son's soccer practice before picking up my truck. We would ride together. I could tell him a few stories.

He enjoyed hearing them.

But as I continued en route to pick up my truck -- the one I love in its own way -- I found myself ready to return to it.

As simple and unencumbered as everything was -- without the responsibilities that I now realize have come to define me in ways that I would have never known -- I missed my life as I know it now.

Would I want to go back?

Yes. To the freedom. And to the young legs.

But not.

Not to the loneliness and lack of purpose. Not to asking the questions that didn't matter.

It's nice to know:

I could go back to driving my old truck, and I would be happy.

I could go back to being 23, and I would be happy (and better looking).

Or I can be where I am now -- driving around with a nostalgic look less steeped in history. To the empty backseat where both of my boys have spoken and done things that will be enshrined forever in my heart.

I realize I like it where I am, too.

And I like enjoying automatic shift.

Especially now that they have cell phones.

"... That Means It Ain't Stepped On, Dig Me?"

"Oops, I did it again..."


I mean, right?

Doesn't Sarah Palin in her '80s college days -- wearing a shirt that reads, "I may be broke but I'm not flat busted" -- look like a brunette, pre-psycho Britney?

I know it's offensive to objectify a former Alaskan beauty pageant queen wearing a t-shirt extolling the virtues of having large breasts in favor of a less-desirable state of personal economics ...

... especially when she's the Republican running for vice president ...

But, oops, it is what it is.

London's Going To Be Cool -- Like, Really, Is It Going To Be Hot There?

"Go home. Your dad wouldn't even break my skateboard for me."

How often do you hear a kid in the neighborhood tell that to your kid?

Well, it happened this week. Seriously.

Anyway ...




* I know the Olympics are done, and they did whatever overblown ceremony to signal it, but I can't help but go out again on the porch and watch the men's volleyball team (the last event) win gold on the primetime replay.

* It's depressing. They just flash backed to the Jason Lezak relay split.

* I guess China wins because we heard the Chinese national anthem more than ours. We had more Americans on the medal stand, though. Not bad considering they've got about 500 gazillion more people and teach their children how to flip on a balance beam at age 3.

* How is it that John Williams composes every bad-ass song for every bad-ass visual spectacle?

* The basketball team won gold against Spain, thank goodness. They did it right -- and with as much humility as you can expect from guys who can do what they do. And Kobe has finally turned the corner in the hearts and minds of old, crotchety white guys who think all NBA players are criminals.

* I heard the gold medal game was one of the best international basketball games ever. I wouldn't know, because it started at 2:30 a.m. over here and I could only last the first half.

* Jeremy Wariner got a gold medal. But he couldn't do it without his archrival who beat him individually. It's interesting to watch individuals in such an individualistic, egocentric sport work together as a team. Watching the 400m relay is kind of awkward while at the same time compelling.

* Remember when we were so scared of the Russians, at least those of us who were born before the internet? Whatever happened to those guys?

* Oh, that's right. Sonya Richards chased down the Russian in the last leg of the 400m relay. There's nothing like watching an American haul ass past a former superpower.

* The table tennis guys are sweating. And using the paddles as fans. Who knew?

* I got to see a pole-vaulter for about a minute. And a high-jumper for about two minutes. Somehow I managed to miss every second of the long jump. When I was 10, how was it that I saw Carl Lewis and every single spec of dust? Maybe because it was in Los Angeles.

* When I watch diving, all I can really judge is whether there was a little splash or a big splash. Greg Louganis kind of hooked me 20 years ago when he cracked his head open on one of the diving platforms in Seoul. I'm not rooting for it to happen, but I keep wondering if it will.

* Bob Costas did a great job, no matter how goofy he might seem to be. And I enjoyed the sardonic moments, with the subversive double entendre -- like when he had to segue from a featurette on China's "Temple of Heaven."

"They say no nail was used to build the temple ... and I'm in no place to argue with them."

* The Chinese had a real '70s kind of color and design thing going on in every venue. I'm sure it was supposed to symbolize something, but I kept having flashbacks to the old Houston Astros jerseys.

* It's been real, China. Hope you get your shit together.